Nigel Green, CEO of deVere Group, one of the world’s largest independent financial advisory organisations, has warned that the historic US yen intervention is already coming apart. deVere Group provides financial advice and services to international investors and expatriates. The yen has weakened past 159 per US dollar, retracing roughly half the gains from July’s joint intervention, which saw the US buy yen for the first time since 1998 alongside Japan. This swift reversal from levels near 152 to towards the psychological 160 threshold has undone much of the coordinated action. “A currency defence that gives back half its gains within weeks is not holding. It is failing in slow motion, and the pace of that unwind is genuinely alarming,” Green stated.
The implications of this weakening yen extend well beyond currency traders. It raises borrowing costs and inflation risk for Japan, threatens to reignite yen-funded carry trades globally, and questions the credibility of policy coordination between Washington and Tokyo. Green highlighted the Bank of Japan’s (BoJ) inaction on the same day as the US intervention as a critical misstep. He stressed that successful coordinated action requires multiple reinforcing moves to shift market psychology, a chance Japan “blinked” on.
This hesitation reflects a genuine split in US and Japanese policy, not merely bad timing. Green noted a divergence between those advocating tightening to fix yen weakness and others fearful of choking off economic growth. The BoJ’s benchmark rate remains at just 1%, despite inflation exceeding its target for most of the past four years. Such a wide rate gap against the Federal Reserve inevitably tests currency markets, where intervention, according to Green, only buys time and fails to close fundamental imbalances. Tokyo’s caution is also shaped by historical events, including a past BoJ hike that led to stalled growth and a political mentor’s swift exit.
